Résumé

Andrey Vayner (University of Toronto )

In the local universe strong correlation between stellar mass of galactic bulges and the supermassive black holes at their centers suggests that the two coevolved together. Quasars tend to be triggered simultaneously with rapid star formation in their respective host galaxies. We see evidence for outflows near the vicinity of the black hole in a significant number of quasars through broad (FWHM > 2000 km/s) blue shifted absorption lines in their UV spectra, indicating material moving as fast as 0.2c. It has been proposed that these winds could insert momentum into the host galaxy, causing massive outflows on galaxy wide scales, effectively shutting off star formation and giving rise to present day scaling relations.
I will present our latest work on broad-absorption line (BAL) quasars selected from SDSS that have shown recent emergence of BAL in multiple ionic species. I will show high-resolution (R=40,000) spectra from the Very Large Telescope (VLT) UVES instrument that traces the rest frame UV portion of the electromagnetic spectrum for these z=2-4 quasars. Our observations give us better clues about the origin of the variability as well as several properties of these winds such as their size, composition, metallicities, and limits on their location relative to the central accretion disc.